


Curiosity

by Elfy (elfowlgirl)



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6040926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfowlgirl/pseuds/Elfy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say curiosity killed the cat - so far, it’s yet to catch up with me. Oneshot. (Originally posted to Tumblr on May 23, 2015)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity

I remember skidding hard across the tile - kicking up a thick dust as I fell, turning end-over-end, before catching and righting myself in midair.

I know who he is, of course. Almost everyone does. “Horaven the Hero”, strutting about Xinkala with fans at his heels, gathering admiration from anyone who has yet to pick a clan, to choose a goal, to find a truth.

That is to say, I don’t like him very much.

He was dumb enough to drop his guard around those… _adventurers_. He’d cracked the damn lion mask, too - the first and only of its kind that I’d seen - so there was no prize to be won from this fight. Still, my interest had been more than piqued, and I’d already made the first move from the cover of darkness.

I thought I had the upper hand, at first. I’d been seconds from slaying him where he stood, saved only by the slightest of instinctive movements, and the group’s shouts of surprise from behind me had made me grin even more as I did so. The horned one tried to stop me afterwards, but it’s not like I cared or as if he could do anything of note. So much as laying a hand on him seemed to terrify both him and his companions, and I eagerly turned back to the fight.

I won’t lie, I expected something more from someone of such renown. Yes, his blades were almost as long as I was tall, but it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t hit me.

That’s where the trouble lay. I was fast, and powerful, yet he could more than handle my strikes. His blows would be heavy, but if he didn’t land a blow…

This battle would come down to stamina versus speed.

The adventurers ran off without me, putting their makeshift “plan” into action as I drove Horaven backwards with each well-placed strike of my blades. Several petty retaliations had already sprung to mind - though I was alright with basically forfeiting the “bet”. I wouldn’t have offered it in the first place if I wasn’t, and I always had a trick or two up my sleeve.

And then I started _losing_.

Now that he had his swords in his hands, he blocked each of my swipes with ease. Slowly I became more and more irritated, moving faster and faster, but the quicker I got, the more reckless I became. It seemed less and less likely that I would ever manage to land another blow. I’m not made for repetitive combat, as much as I love it - I’m an assassin. We deliver a couple hits and our opponent goes down. I was tiring quickly.

I, too, must have dropped my guard in my annoyed haste. Rather than simply block me, he dodged. One of his swords whacked me hard in the side. Even damped by the armor I wore, it still stung, and I went flying.

When I landed, crouched, I pulled one last move. It was one of spite, or even desperation, as I threw three of my knives at his head. He calmly deflected them.

And, as he took another step forward, I did the thing I knew best.

I disappeared into the shadows.

I retreated.

—

I abandoned the catacombs. There would be nothing left for me there. The mercs would have killed most if not all the Ban already, and there was no reason to collect more masks when I’d just end up giving them away. I also had no desire to paint a target on my chest, with the few masks I’d gathered clacking together on my belt, or to end up in trouble for murder. _Again_.

Admittedly, it wasn’t as much of a pain as most would probably consider it. I couldn’t give them literally _all_ of my masks as even I didn’t know where some of them were anymore; stashed in deposits along the countryside, left untouched at bloodstained battlefields, lost as presents and threats and messages and stories.

I’ve killed a _lot_ of Ban, and I don’t regret any of it.

It also lifted a literal weight off my shoulders. As many stashes as I held - the biggest just outside of Xinkala itself - I still carried a fair amount with me as I went from place to place. I knew where my favorites were. The unique, the bizarre, that told of tiring tales and impressive feats. None of _those_ were close to the city. As obscure as my hiding spots were, it wouldn’t surprise me if some over-investigative idiot happened to stumble into one, so I kept the best of the best in the safest places I could find and that only I could (hopefully) reach.

I paused my stroll through the city to stop at a vendor, and purchased several dozen of their stone Ban masks. It was easy enough to tell the difference between them and the real things, especially for a collector like myself, but they were still popular enough as souvenirs and faux mementos. There’d even been an occasion in the past where I’d found a _real_ mask mixed in with the rest - the merchant hadn’t noticed. I’d bought it just because I could.

The plan I’d crafted was simple (and shallow), but what good plan wasn’t?

I’d bring the biggest bag I could, stuffed full with all the masks I’d promised them, and then throw in the stone ones just to be annoying. I could carry the bag, barely, and even with the four of them I doubted they’d have an easy time of it. They were foreigners, and I’ve learned that Onorhians can handle more than non-Onorhians. That’s not me being snooty, it’s fact.  In their hunt for “the truth”, to keep up with all the others on the same quest, they were generally stronger, faster, tougher. Maybe not so much “smarter”, but brains hardly matter when a well-placed punch can disconnect your head from your body.

I would say “we”, but I personally think that being born in Onorhant makes you Onorhian in the same sense that being able to draw a sword from its scabbard makes you a warrior; it doesn’t. If you don’t believe in _Onorhian_ truths, _Onorhian_ ideologies, then what made you more Onorhian than any foreigner?

Though I don’t seem to understand foreigners, either. Those adventurers - hell, those _misfits_ \- were one enormous conundrum. Like a riddle with no answer, they barely seemed to fit together. The horned one was enthusiastic, almost bizarrely so; the tall redhead did fairly poorly when it came to actual combat; the white-haired one acted the most “normal” by far, and even then there was something off about her; and the one in red, with his glaive - Gregor, I think his name was - was actually… fairly impressive. He knew how to wield it, and took down that Ban with a single blow.

It’s not even _just_ their conflicts in personalities, it’s also their conflicts in fighting. Gregor took down the Ban, easy. Yet the horned one - his name started with an M, I think. Marius? - decided, while his companion was in the middle of a battle, to begin conversation with me. And then punched the already-dead Ban in the face. And then did some weird magic thing to make a tabletop out of shadow, _and_ broke the other Ban’s mask.

What the fuck, Marius.

Still, a deal’s a deal. I’d gathered most of the masks by now from their collective hiding spots, and tossed the stone ones in with the rest, grinning my usual sly smile.

I hefted the bag, testing both its weight and resolve. It’d hold. Another hard tug, and I began the trek that would lead me back through the woods, down the streets of Xinkala, and eventually to the rise that served as the Lily Clan gardens.

It seemed, I realized as I walked, stupid to think that the misfits would make it out of there alive. They weren’t as competent as the other foreigners, not by a long shot, though they outnumbered them easily. To find them dead by the Ban, the mercs, the spiritfolk they’d been sent to kill, _each other_ , would be of no surprise to me. And yet…

They spoke with Horaven like they knew him, and I doubt many others could act similarly. Though they are clearly afraid of me, they still decided to stand against me, both when I was confronting those Ban and while attacking the “hero”.

For all that the Onorhians vie for - their own personal truth and ideals - I feel as though they change thoughts at a whim. That their dreams and principles only hold weight for as long as they latch onto them.

It might be that what these foreigners, then, these adventurers, these misfits, have is not strength or speed or stamina. Perseverance, I think, is their strong point.

And now, they’ve piqued my curiosity.

**Author's Note:**

> I later got Jay to read this: http://elfowlgirl.tumblr.com/post/123410651983/so-for-the-patreon-stuff-this-month-i-asked-jay-to


End file.
